HTC Thunderbolt Expected To Receive Gingerbread by Q2 of 2011

HTC Thunderbolt Expected To Receive Gingerbread by Q2 of 2011

Talk about great customer service; a recent owner of the HTC Thunderbolt contacted HTC regarding a problem he was experiencing with the Bluetooth service on his Thunderbolt. In HTC’s response to John, the Thunderbolt owner, they announced that it would receive the coveted Android 2.3 update sometime in Q2 of 2011. Based on the message emailed back to John, it seems as if the HTC rep accidentally copied press information for the Android 2.3 announcement that was probably expected to be released to the public in the near future. In any case, I’m sure this news pleases many Thunderbolt owners, and may even persuade consumers looking for a new smartphone to purchase the first LTE smartphone on Verizon Wireless. Feel free to read the full email below:

Dear John, Congratulations on obtainng the HTC Thunderbolt. We understand how important it is that your device meets your needs. John, Bluetooth manufacturers make their devices to be compatible with our phones. We do not make our phones to be compatible with the thousands of Bluetooth devices in the market. Bluetooth manufacturers conduct the testing to see if complete compatability is achievable. It is the software in the Bluetooth devices which dictates whether they work or not. Our software in the phones, ensures that the phone can pair and turn on the Bluetooth. Anything else, goes to the Bluetooth manufacturer for troubleshooting. You would need to speak with the car manufacturer to ensure that full compatibilty is achievable. The Thunderbolt does have a text to speech feature. We are excited to announce that the Thunderbolt will receive the Gingerbread (Android 2.3) update in Q2 2011. Stay tuned for details as we get closer to the update availability. New User Features UI refinements for simplicity and speed Faster, more intuitive text input One-touch word selection and copy/paste Improved power management Control over applications Internet calling Near-field communications Downloads management Enhancements for gaming Performance Native input and sensor events Open API for native audio Native graphics management Native access to Activity lifecycle, window management Native access to assets, storage Robust native development environment New forms of communication Internet telephony Near Field Communications (NFC Rich multimedia Mixable audio effects Support for new media formats Access to multiple cameras New Platform Technologies Media Framework New media framework fully replaces OpenCore, maintaining all previous codec/container support for encoding and decoding. Integrated support for the VP8 open video compression format and the WebM open container format Adds AAC encoding and AMR wideband encoding Linux Kernel Upgraded to 2.6.35 Networking SIP stack, configurable by device manufacturer Support for Near Field Communications (NFC), configurable by device manufacturer Updated BlueZ stack Dalvik runtime Dalvik VM: Concurrent garbage collector (target sub-3ms pauses) Adds further JIT (code-generation) optimizations Improved code verification StrictMode debugging, for identifying performance and memory issues Core libraries: Expanded I18N support (full worldwide encodings, more locales) Faster Formatter and number formatting. For example, float formatting is 2.5x faster. HTTP responses are gzipped by default. XML and JSON API response sizes may be reduced by 60% or more. New collections and utilities APIs Improved network APIs Improved file read and write controls Updated JDBC Updates from upstream projects: OpenSSL 1.0.0a BouncyCastle 1.45 ICU 4.4 zlib 1.2.5 We apologize John, for any inconvenience that you may have experienced. To send a reply to this message or let me know I have successfully answered your question log in to our ContactUs site using your email address and your ticket number XXXXXXXXXXX. Sincerely, Carol HTC